Christie Blatchford, a powerful public voice through nearly five decades of journalism, has died after being diagnosed with cancer in November.

Blatchford was one of Canada’s most prominent writers, having been a leading journalist at each of Toronto’s daily newspapers, a trailblazer for women in sports reporting, an award-winning war correspondent, and a columnist renowned for her vexing mix of toughness and tenderness.

She was 68.

Blatchford spent two stints as a marquee columnist at National Post, including being one of the first editorial employees hired when the newspaper was created in 1998. Her last column in the Post and the Postmedia chain was published on Oct 22, expressing her bewilderment that Justin Trudeau was re-elected.

She started at the Globe and Mail in 1973, billed as Canada’s first female sports columnist. She moved to the Toronto Star in 1977 as a features and news writer and then to the Toronto Sun in 1982 as a columnist.

Christie Blatchford started at the Globe and Mail in 1973, moved to the Toronto Star in 1977 and then to the Toronto Sun in 1982, before joining the newly launched National Post in 1998.Mike Cassese / Postmedia Network file photo

Blatchford passionately championed crime victims, Canada’s soldiers, Canada’s athletes — particularly Olympians — and publicly obsessed over law and order issues. In court, sitting in the front row, she would be relentlessly grabbing at tissues, weeping as she chronicled evidence of child abuse and neglect. And then she made readers weep when reading her account of the injustice.

Christie Mary Blatchford was born in Rouyn-Noranda, a town in northwestern Quebec built around a copper mine, and moved to Toronto when she was in high school, with her parents, Ross and Kathleen, and brother Les. Her father managed the local skating rink, both in Rouyn-Noranda and Toronto, but Blatchford said newspapers were something of a “family business.” Her grandfather, Andy Lytle, was a prominent sports writer at the Toronto Star and Vancouver Sun, and her uncle, Tommy Lytle, was a longtime news editor at the Star. When leaving Ryerson University, she was named the leading journalism graduate.

At the end of each day during the Col. Russell Williams murder trial in 2010, she could be heard on the phone in an Italian restaurant in Belleville, Ont., speaking with her editor at the Globe. Most everyone in the restaurant heard her when she was told her story wasn’t scheduled for the front page.

A waiter turned and gaped at the blue streak she unleashed during the call and, more so, right after. Her story appeared on the front page the next day. This had long been Blatchford’s style.

In 1977, a copy editor at the Globe made changes and cuts to her sports column without consulting her and the next day she called the rival Toronto Star. She started writing for the Star soon after.

It wasn’t just about ego. She cared deeply about the stories she worked on, the people in them and the issues they revealed, and she wanted others to care as well. The front page was where stories landed that people needed to notice.

She did not just squander energy on newsroom brawls, however.

She expended more energy on the gathering of news than most, if not all, of those around her. When an aggressive, keen reporter arrived five hours early to get good access to a high-profile court case, Blatchford had already been at the head of the line for an hour.

She sacrificed much for her stories.

When she was a young reporter, people joked she didn’t work in the newsroom, she lived in it. Her travel on a moment’s notice was frequent and far. Two marriages ended in divorce. She had no children, but treated her bull terrier, Obie, who recently predeceased her, as her child.

Christie Blatchford at the Charlie Three Zero media tent at Kandahar Air Field in March 21, 2006.Supplied

In 2006 she was in Kandahar, Afghanistan, covering the war while embedded with the 1st Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry.

“She demonstrated to all of us that there was no place too remote or austere for her to live with us in, no situation too dangerous, no Canadian soldier too rough or crude for her not to win over with her unique directness, toughness and impeccable common sense,” said Col. Ian Hope, who commanded the battalion.

Blatchford spent weeks in the mountains of north Kandahar with soldiers who were hunting Taliban groups.

“Month after harrowing month she accompanied us through firefights, attacks and ambushes, witnessing the most intense combat Canadians have seen since Korea, and filing incredibly vivid and accurate reports.”

Blatchford recently said she valued her time in Afghanistan.

“The most profound stories of my life, probably, the ones that had the most meaning for me at the time and now, is Afghanistan,” she said in November. “It was scary, so raw and so important at the time, that nothing else will really match that experience. I loved being with the soldiers, I loved the fear, I loved the excitement, the whole thing.”

Her experiences with the soldiers and their families are detailed in one of her five non-fiction books, Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army, which won the Governor-General’s Literary Award in 2008.

Many people called her “Blatch.” Even she did when signing off emails or starting phone conversations.

Blatchford connected with people in her stories in unconventional ways. In some cases she would hug them and befriend them beyond the confines of journalism. At one extended trial, a witness became so attached to her he reached out to clasp her hand for support as he nervously walked up the aisle to testify.

Another, an adult survivor of childhood molestation, phoned her in the middle of the night after his testimony in court against his former teacher at Upper Canada College. He had become a cocaine addict after leaving home when his father didn’t believe him, he had said during two days on the stand.

On the phone at 1 a.m., he told Blatchford he needed money. How much, she asked. Seventy bucks, he answered. Blatchford told him her address and gave him $70 when he arrived at her doorstep.

She was a model for knowing how to put your faith in your truths and not worry about the backlash, not worry about how people respond

Jen Gerson, former National Post correspondent

Although notoriously seen as “tough on crime” in her copy, she also once hired John Struthers, a Toronto lawyer, to defend a man charged with serious arson. “She believed in him,” Struthers said. “Christie had a very kind heart.” The man was acquitted and Blatchford helped him get back on his feet and find housing.

She was generous with colleagues, as well, especially those with less experience than herself.

She often spoke eloquently to a judge on behalf of the media in court or withered a court clerk reluctant to turn over public information. She shared sources or vouched for reporters with people who trusted her, even reporters with other news outlets. Sometimes.

She would frequently help young reporters, all the while exhibiting her renowned profanity.

Many journalists saw her as a role model.

“She was a model for knowing how to put your faith in your truths and not worry about the backlash, not worry about how people respond,” said Jen Gerson, a freelance journalist and former Post correspondent. “She was unafraid and unapologetic about her views. It was inspiring for me.”

In recent years, Blatchford focused more heavily on political commentary at the Post. She wrote columns and appeared in videos that featured her tough-nose attitude and conservative viewpoints that were often polarizing. She was beloved by many readers — who inundated the newspaper with cards and well wishes when they learned of her cancer — but was also vividly maligned in social media.

She did not seem to care and merrily kept posting photographs on Twitter of dogs she met on her extensive travels. There was never a dog she couldn’t love.

Anne Marie Owens, a former editor-in-chief at the Post, said Blatchford struck a nerve with readers.

“She sparked visceral response. Nobody was on the fence about Christie. They either loved her or hated her. She was never about the middle ground,” Owens said. “She had the most consistent moral compass of anyone I’ve ever encountered. Look at her entire body of work and you’ll see a through line that ran through everything she was committed to and that she cared deeply about.”

Blatchford was also an astounding host.

She enjoyed throwing large parties. In 1998, to celebrate the launch of the fledgling National Post, she hosted a roaring bash at her home that is still talked about by those who were there, and those who claimed to be.

In the early days of the Post, newly hired reporters gathered in a restaurant to eat and drink and get to know each other. At the end, as everyone regretfully tallied what they owed, Blatchford pulled out her newly issued corporate credit card. “Let’s break this f—er in,” she declared, grabbing everyone’s bill. “Let’s see what the bastards are made of,” she said of the editors.

For the Post’s 20th anniversary in 2018, she hosted another large celebration at a Toronto pub, reserved for her for the occasion. People were greeted with liquor shots and food and an open bar, even the single malt Scotch, all of it personally settled by Blatchford in a bill that could have covered a wedding reception.

She was an avid runner and climber, fit by most standards, petite, even. But she got it in her head a few years ago she would like to drop a few dress sizes.

In short order, she worked her way from wearing size 8 to fitting in a size 4 straight off the rack. And she stayed that way, which pleased her, said friend and fellow journalist Sam Pazzano, veteran court reporter for the Toronto Sun.

“It is another testament to her discipline. She took flying lessons, she was a lifeguard, played basketball, ran marathons. She was tenacious in everything she did,” he said.

Shortly before she was diagnosed with lung cancer, Blatchford had been in Scotland climbing Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles.

She showed no symptoms during the climb; no shortness of breath or coughing. After she arrived home, however, she had a pain in her lower back. She learned she had lung cancer that metastasized to bones in her spine and hip before being detected.

She had a hip replacement and what she liked to call “a pipe” implanted in her thigh — which “hurt like a mother-f—er,” she said at the time — and underwent radiation therapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy.

Blatchford died Wednesday morning in a Toronto hospital, where a circle of close friends and family formed a bedside vigil

Even as she was in hospital, her health declining, she spoke of her next assignment and remained true to her competitive nature.

“She had every intention of covering the Yonge Street van attack trial this spring,” said Rob Roberts, editor-in-chief of the National Post. “And she wanted to make sure she was the lead writer on the story.

“She would have written the defining account of the trial, equal parts heartbreakingly empathetic and simply furious; it’s what she did.”

Blatchford had also wanted to write one column, and one column only, on the “funny side of cancer.”

She never got that chance.

Said former editor-in-chief Anne Marie Owens of Christie Blatchford: ‘She had the most consistent moral compass of anyone I’ve ever encountered. Look at her entire body of work and you’ll see a through line that ran through everything she was committed to and that she cared deeply about.’Bruce Peters / Random House